


Who You Are is Not Where You've Been (You're Still an Innocent)

by Elekat



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Break down, Canonical Character Death, Death, Drama, F/M, Fluff, Food Issues, It's prodigal son of course there is murder, Major Original Character(s), Minor Character Death, Missing Children, Multi, Murder, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29507691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elekat/pseuds/Elekat
Summary: The girl in the box is gone, but Malcolm has infinite demons lurking in the corners of his mind. His mother breaking down is just the tip of the iceberg. Oh, and add a series of murders into the mix.Tags updated with chapters
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Gil Arroyo/Jessica Whitly, Malcolm Bright & Ainsley Whitly, Past Gil Arroyo/Jackie Arroyo - Relationship, past Jessica Whitly/Martin Whitly
Comments: 16
Kudos: 23





	1. We are sirens, we suffer in the silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gilica gc](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=gilica+gc).



> I do not own Prodigal Son.  
> Story title taken from Innocent by Taylor Swift.  
> Song: Must of Us Are Strangers - Seafret (Acoustic)

**October**

The sky was dark, a charcoal grey filtered through yellow as land closed in – not fully black as it was lit up from below by the mass amounts of buildings that littered the earth. The wind howled through the tunnel that the buildings lining the street made, moving towards the next crossroad. Leaves tumbled along, catching on objects as though they wanted to hold on, only to be ripped away again with the next gust. Bare amounts of orange and reds showed on the neatly planted trees. The weather was finally starting to cool down from a scorching summer to a mild autumn; while the days were still warm, the nights were cold.

Stepping around the corner, a man pulled his hood up to try and ward off the chilling wind that assaulted him. Glancing around quickly, the only movement were those of the trees and people looking down between their curtains, glaring disapprovingly at the night owl habits of the youth. Crossing his arms to try and conserve body heat, he looked up at the sky for a moment, squinting like he was trying to see the stars. He looks down once more and speeds up. He could smell the rain in the air, see the clouds starting to close in, soon it would pour down on the cement forest where he lived.

New York City was not a place known for being quiet, nor was it a place known for being dark. The substantial population meant there was always at least one person awake (though more than likely, thousands awake); and in turn, a substantial amount of light coming out of the windows of people’s homes to bring the world below. The man was jealous of the people who were sitting in their homes in the apartments that towered above, watching television or sleeping, not a care in the world about what was happening on the street below.

Yet, the night was quiet. The street was empty, all the people seeming to have disappeared. The howling of the wind was his only company, his phone having died hours before. It was even darker than usual. Looking up, it felt as though instead of being awake, the lights had decided to sleep. _The howl is a growl, the city is getting ready for its winter rest_ , he mused. Even as he likened the odd night to a bear’s annual hibernation, he knew it was a coincidence.

It wasn’t anywhere near winter yet. Only the first week of October. The leaves were just beginning to fall. The howl sped up for a moment to whistle, one of the leaves caught on his arm. Red with tinges of brown. Dying but still alive. As he flicked it away, flashbacks to his childhood ran through his mind. Jumping into the piles of leaves that his parents would rake up, letting them fly up into the air and his father’s stern voice that would melt away to laughter as the rosy cheeked smile would look up at him. Throwing leaves with friends in the school yard and running away as the teachers yelled. Jumping into puddles that the rain would leave behind, soaking his runners through but not caring that he had to have wet socks all day.

The days of childhood wonder were over. Cement now had more prevalence to wildlife. He couldn’t remember the last time he smelt freshly cut grass or dirt freshly soaked from the rain. This was a world where the closest thing to a wild animal that people saw were the squirrels in Central Park, raccoons rummaging through trash left about the city, or pigeons following people around begging for scraps.

As he was about to turn the next corner to continue on his way towards the subway, a shadow lying in the bushes at the edge of the small park stopped him. Looking around, he saw that there was no one. A couple blocks down he could see the faint light from a car, the red lights lightening up as they slowed. He started to continue walking but looked up at the sky and took another deep breath. It was getting darker, the clouds taking over and creating a mist effect as they reflected and swallowed the light. Glancing back at the bushes, he sighed and quickly jogged across the street.

“What’re you doing man.” He mumbled to himself as he got closer to the bushes. A person was laying there, loosely curled up with their back towards the street. The man figured they were homeless, using the leaves of the bushes as cover for when it started to rain. He remembered from his cubs that leaves were good insolation, but they weren’t waterproof. “Hey man.” He yelled out as he got closer. Stepping onto the sidewalk, he heard a car drive by behind him, the headlights briefly lighting up the area before it went dark again.

“It’s gonna rain, you’re gonna want to go somewhere dry.” The figure never moved. The man wondered how he had seen them in the first place, the jacket was on them was dark, blending into the ground. The leaves helped obscure them, leaving them almost invisible to the street. “Dude, get up.” The figure moved stiffly, but only to roll in on themselves instead of out. It reminded him of his sister when they were children, curling in on herself in the dead of night after they watched films that they knew their parents would never be okay with. Neither wanted to get in trouble, so they’d sit in fear together instead of asking for help. “Fine. Whatever. Don’t blame me when ya get soaked.”

He turned and started to walk away again. His foot half off of the sidewalk before he huffed, “this is what I get for trying to be nice.” A drop of rain fell from the sky. He knew his chances of getting to the station before then were slim now. He shivered as the wind picked up. The rain was starting to pick up, and some drops flew sharply into his eyes. Rubbing them he stomped over to the figure and grabbed their shoulder, “Hey man, I’m just tryin…”

The rest of his sentence never made it out. Just as the clouds opened and the rain slammed down on them, the figure easily rolled over towards him. Only, it wasn’t what he expected. Instead of someone homeless, just trying to stay out of the rain, it was a man with maggots crawling out of a hole on his forehead. The man fell to the ground and tried to back away, just as a piece of skin fell off with the battering of the rain.

* * *

_Laughter filled the air, as fresh sounding as the air was to breath. He heard the ocean in the background, the swaying of the waves as they moved in and out. Opening his eyes, he lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the bright blue above him. Only one fluffy cloud was in the sky, moving lazily because it has nowhere to go._

_“Malcolm!” Moving his head, he watched as Ainsley ran across the sand towards him. It flew out behind her like road runner, nothing could stand in her way. Her golden blonde hair was lighter than when he last saw it, the curls tighter. Her skin glowed under the bright sun, hazel eyes sparkling. Moving slightly so he could see around her, he saw the distant figures of his parents walking up the beach, hand in hand._

_He couldn’t remember the last time they’d been there, the house in the Caribbean. The air was salty from the ocean, but still had the sweet smell of the fruit that hung from trees. They all loved it there. The fresh air was good for them, their father said. It was the one place where they were a family away from nanny, away from New York City and the hospital and the galas. Ainsley didn’t have horseback riding lessons here twice a week, and he didn’t have ballet._

_“You need to come and play!” She yelled over at him; her voice being carried away by the wind that wasn’t really there. Ainsley reached her hand out, but didn’t move forward anymore, simply smiled at him. It took him a moment to realize she wasn’t blinking anymore, but instead frozen in time like a wax figure._

_Behind her, her saw his parents walking. Even faceless, he knew they were. From the dark hair, the dress his mother wore which wasn’t beach safe, the wild curls on his father’s head. There was another person with them though. This one was smaller, hair lighter than his parents but as curly as his fathers. She was running ahead, splashing as the waves hit the sand under her feet._

_“Be careful!” He heard the distant sound of his mother’s voice. It was lighter, carefree, as though she was simply saying the words because she knew they were expected and not because she actually worried. He watched the figure of his father, still faceless, run towards the girl and lift her up over his shoulder, tinkling laughter spreading out over the beach._

_“Malcolm, come play!” He turned his head, and suddenly it wasn’t the sound of waves but birds, the buzzing sound of multiple people talking at once. There was grass by his face, tickling his ears. Trees lined the distance, along with a colourful playground erected out from the cement and greenery. “Malcolm!” The voice whined._

_He turned his head once more; this time Ainsley was there but older. No longer a baby faced five-year-old, but nine years old and looking completely annoyed. Tapping her foot in a way that he had seen their mother do many times. Beside her was the same curly haired girl, cobalt blue eyes staring at him like an owl. “It’s your turn, I’m tired of the swings. They’re for babies.” Ainsley complained._

_“Will you play?” The voice was soft, questioning. He shook his head, picking up the book he had beside him. The heavy tomb was about Einstein, a book he had managed to save from his mother’s burn pile, years before when he was full of misery and regret._

_She still was._

_“Malcolm, Malcolm please.” Tears were in her voice. A drop of rain fell into his eye, causing him to flinch as the blue above quickly turned to black. Wiping it away and looking down, he was horrified to see that it wasn’t rain. Turning back, he saw Ainsley still standing there, silver knife in her hand blood splatter everywhere. The sky continued to pour blood, soaking up the world around them with the sins of their father. Beside the shocked girl, eyes wide as she stared down at her hand, was a white teddy bear with a single drop of blood._

_Then there was screaming._

His screaming. Malcolm sat up panting, spitting the mouth guard down onto the bed beside him. The girl in the box has disappeared in the past few months, and he had hoped that she would leave behind peaceful sleep but instead his subconscious had other plans. It was a fascinating theory, facing one’s demons. He remembered being told once that he should face what caused him pain, taking away the power from the object would take away the fear. Yet, it never worked in the way that it was planned to.

Yes, facing the demons may take away the pain in that moment, but what about the residual trauma that followed that moment? The girl in the box was gone, at least for now, Sophie Sanders still free in the world. But what would happen when his brain decided that the girl in the box was to be back, not Sophie Sanders but the idea of the girl that he had for twenty years.

A new dream was occurring though. A dream he hadn’t had for years yet seemed to be coming back with a vengeance and a twist. For years only small snippets of this dream came through, guilt surrounding the date and the deterioration of his mother around it. They were always at the park, she always wanted him to play, then she was always gone.

Throughout the years, his mother had tried to reassure him that it was not his fault. Not his fault that she had disappeared, just like it was not his fault that his father was a serial killer. When waiting for the police to stop talking to his mother and the nanny that day, a passerby said that sometimes the world worked in mysterious ways and that it would always work itself out. He remembered Jackie screaming at them after, as she stood there with a hand protectively on his shoulder and holding Ainsley’s hand, the girl protesting that she was too old for that. His faintly remembered Gil rushing over, his mother close behind with glossy eyes. From there it was fuzzy, another piece of his life that was shut behind walls to protect him from himself.

No matter what, Malcolm felt as though it was his fault. If that autumn he had given in and played with his sister, no matter if the game of going up and down the slide a hundred times was boring and dizzying. Nobody really knew what happened that day. Ainsley said she had stopped for a moment, turned towards a friend, but when she looked back, the girl was gone. While he could no longer see the image, he could hear his father telling him on Ainsley’s first day of school that siblings stuck together. Yet, on that day they hadn’t and paid the price.

Malcolm wanted to chalk up the reassurance of the memory to the trauma surrounding Nicholas Endicott. Plus, his father’s phone calls – ones asking about his sister, about him, about what she’d done. He figured that the memory was also brought up by the fact that he’d gone to the empty grave the day before with his sister – a day trip – to bring some flowers that they couldn’t in the summer because of the virus running wild. Looking over at the clock, he sighed. It was only three, but Malcolm knew he wasn’t going to fall back asleep again tonight.

He got out of bed, stretched, then headed to the kitchen to boil the kettle. He knew he wouldn’t get through this without coffee, even though it wasn’t the drug of his choice nor did he particularly like it. Once it whistled and he had the grinder sitting in the French press, he went and sat down on his frankly uncomfortable couch. He winced, wishing that he hadn’t let his mother decorate the loft anyway she saw fit while he had been in DC. The looked across the room, the blank television sitting between the two cases of medieval weaponry the rest of his family hated.

Laying his head back, he wondered how he had gotten to this place. How the world had decided he was the one to have a serial killer as a father, to have a missing – probably dead – sister, another sister who was hellbent on proving she was better than he was, to being plagued by the demons that weren’t even his to begin with. _It’s all so fucked up_ , he declared to himself as the timer he had sent started to ring.

Slowly he got up, letting the irritating clamor help wake up his sluggish brain as he moved towards the kitchen and pressed the top of the French press down, letting the grinds and beans be filtered away from the rest of his bitter beverage. A small part of him wanted to see if somebody was up, somebody would talk to him. He could grab his phone, text someone. Gil would wake up for him, but he knew the man had just left the hospital and way staying with his mother; and Malcolm definitely didn’t feel up to that intense of questioning at this hour. He debated Ainsley but decided that this was something he didn’t want to worry her with. Dani Maybe? Malcolm didn’t want to annoy her, seem needy when their friendship was finally on the mend from the mess this spring. There was no way he was calling JT, who would probably just send him to voice mail anyway. His last option was Edrisa, but as much as he liked the strange conversations they had, they weren’t close enough for a post night terror three in the morning chat.

He leaned over the counter; head bowed in defeat that maybe this would finally get to him. Finally, free of the girl in the box and the first memory that hits him is the one that causes him to break. He was debating going to channel surf, when the air was suddenly filled with the shrill ringing of his phone across the room. It was sitting beside his bed, and unless his father had suddenly gotten middle of the night phone privileges, which Malcolm high doubted as he barely had normal phone privileges back, the phone call was just what he needed.

Malcolm quickly crossed the room and glanced outside. The lights on the building across the street weren’t on, but there was someone who seemed to be standing in a streetlight staring up at them, before turning and walking. Filing that away in his head for later, he picked up the phone and swiped across the screen.

“Hello?”

“Sorry to wake you, we have a case.” He hadn’t realized Dani was on call, but it must have been bad for her to be awake already. The tension in his jaw seemed to disappear as the words came out and sunk in. The calm before the metaphoric storm.

“Okay, I’ll call an uber.”

“Don’t bother, on my way to grab you. Get dressed. Bring coffee.”

The phone clicked, and he turned it off before looking out the window once more at the desolate street below. It may have been unconventional, but murder truly was the only thing that kept him sane.


	2. I Wanna Stand Up, I Wanna Let Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: All These Things I've Done - The Killers

**October**

_“Oh Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs,“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t they give you a thrill –several thrills? I’m going to decorate my room with them.”_ Estelle closed the novel in her lap, looking down at the grass green cover of her book. It was one of the last things her parents had bought for her, the cover soft under her fingertips where it was not broken up by the words that adorned the cover. The title in blue foil, _Anne of Green Gables_ often made her think of her own life, often being equated to the character with her dreamy state when she was young with two braids – although she definitely didn’t have red hair.

One thing Estelle had never really resonated with in relation to Anne was her love of October. Yes, the leaves changing was pleasant, but she had never been fond of many aspects of autumn. Autumn generally symbolized dying, going into the bleak territory of death. She would much rather have the finality of death rather than waiting in limbo for it to happen. Estelle also found that rather big things happened in October too. Occasionally they were nice, like when her friend found out she had been accepted to McGill; when autumn was applied to her, they were often full of catastrophe.

This time, though, she hoped to change everything. The first act of this change was to institute a habit she hadn’t had since she was sixteen, which was going for a morning jog before the world woke up. She dressed in black leggings and a hoodie, hoping that the plain monochrome colours would help others ignore her as she went by. One thing Estelle hated was being watched. Picking up a granola bar from the counter, she shoved it into her mouth as quickly as she could, swallowing after only a couple bites (then wincing as it scraped her throat, instantly regretting not being more careful) before grabbing her water bottle and heading out the door.

Once upon a time, everyday would start with these jogs. They were idealized amongst her friends, none of them ever coming on them but saying that Estelle always had her brightest ideas while alone in the world with her music and nature. Granted, nature had never been her favourite thing: while beautiful, she much rather would be inside where it was warm, safe.

As she got outside, Estelle breathed in the brisk air deeply before starting off down the street. She remembered a time when she would jog no matter the weather, only staying inside when her parents physically forced her to because the weather was too dangerous or because she was ill. Even then she would start up the old Wii in the basement and go for a jog on the fit option, looking at all the other mii’s as she passed them by. Even when they visited her grandmother in the winter, she would go on a jog to clear her mind from all the questions that her family inevitably asked her.

Music blasting in her ears, Estelle let the feeling of her heart beating in time with her feet hitting the pavement swaddle her in a cocoon of comfort. She remembered the days when the only calming thing would be the patter of her feet as she walked across the floorboards, back and forth motions creating a sense of security that one got from the familiarity of a motion. That’s when her therapist had suggested jogs, they would be more productive but still have the receptivity of movement.

At this point though, even as she had stopped pacing and was just once again picking up jogging, Estelle wondered if she was perhaps changing along with the seasons. She had decided the night before while lying in bed staring at the ceiling, the obnoxiously loud laughing of her roommates filtering through the flimsy door from the other room, that this autumn there would be a change. Instead of October being the month of terrible things, she would allow it to become the month of new experiences. She wouldn’t lay in bed in the morning, arms wrapped around her knees as tears leaked out of her eyes, she wouldn’t go and find another toxic relationship that she tolerated because letting others dictate her life was easier than figuring it out herself, and she definitely wasn’t going to let the memories of past Octobers haunt her like ghosts who hadn’t yet figured out their purpose to let them out of this world and into another.

Estelle glanced around at the trees that were starting to change colour. This year she was going to enjoy the cooling air, the crunching leaves, and all the inane pumpkin spice products that hit the shelves. This year she was going to graduate, do something with her life.

She was stuck in her head to the point that while Estelle was aware of where she was going, stopping to let traffic go by and not running into benches, Estelle wasn’t to the point of avoiding everything in her path. That was something that cemented her back into reality when she felt her foot hit something that was definitely not a rock, but not a crack in the sidewalk. It was soft but hard at the same time and had the power to stop her from where she was going. Panicking, she lifted her arms up just in time to protect her skull from hitting the cold cement, and the sleeves of her sweater protecting them from becoming bloody messes from the gravel that was left behind from other shoes.

Looking behind her, at first Estelle wasn’t completely sure what she was looking at. Her mind was brought back to high school, when people sitting on the floors in the hallways would delivery stick their legs out to trip the younger grades. But this was different, the leg was attached to a body she had somehow missed, a body that had not willing tripped her but one that didn’t know better. Because at this point, they didn’t know anything.

A scream was caught in the back of her throat as she was frozen staring at them. Brown eyes were frozen in fear, skin tinted grey and lip blue. Their skin was sagging from the rain that had fallen the night before, and their mouth open as though they had been calling out for help. The most prominent feature that drew Estelle’s eyes though was the red hole in their forehead, blood dried in the river flowing away from it but somehow not landing on the cement.

She tried to scramble away, fear taking away her ability to move. Her body didn’t seem to want to operate, her shoes sliding across the ground. When she finally had some success, it was hampered by her not realizing that her foot was tangled in their leg, and she simply fell again, not having the time to cover her head before it hit the cement with a smack.

Estelle laid there, dazed, staring into the eyes that seemed to be more familiar the longer she looked, lifeless yet looking as though they held many secrets they wanted to tell. Finally, her arm moved, slowly pulling her cracked phone from the pocket it had been held in, headphones still hanging out with music playing. She ripped the wire off and dialed 911.

Minutes later she was sitting off to the side, ice pack held to her head but otherwise ignored. She watched as they surrounded the area, taping everything off with yellow and talking into radios. The coroner was there, the ambulance only there for her but obviously annoyed at the fact that she wasn’t actually in need of immediate medical help. Her shoes were taken, a policeman walked over and started to say something but as she stared at him, she could see his mouth moving but no words coming out.

Estelle looked past him, across at a tree that was changing colours and at the vinyl halloween stickers a child was putting up in their apartment window. She decided that nothing was going to get better, Octobers would be the same as Octobers always were. And instead decided that she was going to live by a different quote from _Anne: “Isn’t it nice to think tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet_?”

* * *

The sun had risen into the sky and was shining down brightly, slowly melting the frost, as Malcolm walked towards the scene. Dani was slightly ahead of him, London Fog steaming from her cup. The smell was a small comfort as they had drove, one from his childhood that wasn’t marred with the dreams of serial killers. Instead, memories of Jackie as she told him stories quietly in the morning while Gil was still sleeping.

Malcolm shouldn’t have been surprised to already see Edrisa on the scene when he arrived. She was generally the first one there along with Gil, and Malcolm would have thought they came together if it wasn’t for the medical examiner’s vehicle parked beside Gils own muscle car. He shook his head as he saw the car, wondering if Gil would ever realize those things were a lot more trouble than they were worth. Edrisa was crouched beside the body, which was laying in bushes, wet from the rain that had fallen during the night. He saw another examiner get up, an evidence bag with flesh in it being sealed. Edrisa was crouched beside the body, taking samples from the dirt behind it.

“Execution?” He asked as he and Dani stopped a couple of feet away. Gil looked over at them, sunglasses covering his eyes so Malcolm couldn’t tell what he was feeling right away. From behind him, he heard a scoff.

“What gave that away?” JT came out from behind Gil. “No ID on the guy, we’ll have to do facial rec and hope that someone reported him missing.”

“I’m guessing late teens or early twenties; I’ll know more when I can do some tests.” Edrisa looked up at them. “Cause of death is _definitely_ the shot to the head.”

Malcolm nodded as he looked around at the scene. The park was desolate, and there were quite a few cars driving past now as it was around the time people with normal nine to five jobs headed off to work. “The body had to have been placed last night, there is no way nobody would have not noticed him lying there.”

“Maybe they wanted to mind their own business.” Interjected Dani as she walked around Malcolm to get a better look but appeared to change her mind as she quickly turned away from the body and towards her coworkers.

“Perhaps. Who found him?”

“Ritchie Fuentes was walking home from work around two. He walked all the way to the subway station before he called the cops.” Malcolm nodded as he looked around at the scene, hoping something would pop out at him.

It was a normal small park, one to break up the mass amounts of brick building in the area. A couple benches and a path straight through that went to the next block. While Malcolm knew that _maybe_ the body had been there for a while, that the people who drove by never called the police. Malcolm wanted to believe that they were better than that, though, that even if someone never gave their name they would phone if there was a strange man lying under a bush for more than one day without moving.

Another thing Malcolm noticed was that while the body had obviously been disturbed by the man that found him, there was another shoe print deeper into the bushed that wouldn’t have gotten there by someone just casually walking past. And the fact that the body was as decomposed as it was meant that they hadn’t been killed there but placed there. The Adidas shoes were worn, pattern rubbed off the back of the soles and dirty, headphones laying haphazardly beside him but not attached to any device.

“Cellphone?”

“Nope.” Gil replied as he walked over to stand next to Malcolm.

“Do we know where they were killed?”

Edrisa looked up at him, an annoyed expression crossing her eyes before they went back to being bright and happy. “I’ll find out more when we can do tests, but they were definitely moved here post-mortem.” She studied him for a moment, “you look very awake, did you have coffee already? I didn’t have time, but generally I drink…”

“Edrisa, the vic?” JT let the annoyance sit on his face, something that they were all used to. A blush spread across her face as she looked back down and started speaking quickly,

“I’d place the time of death in the last week. Obviously killed by the bullet wound to the head, but I can see some faint bruising on the face that appears to be anti-mortem.”

“Let us know if you find anything else, thanks Edrisa.” Gil gave her a quick smile before turning to his team and walking them a few steps away. Malcolm looked around at the area, eyes scanning to see if there was anything that would give away possible motive. This look like anywhere though, he noted to himself, a plain place for someone who was trying not to be noticed. It was always hard to solve a case if it was more than forty-eight hours after death, and Malcolm was just thankful that it hadn’t been even longer.

Dani and JT spoke to each other, and maybe to him, but Malcolm didn’t hear the words and instead they flew over his head as he puzzled. Suddenly, Malcolm felt like he was being watched. The hairs on the back of his neck stood, and he put him hand back to rub his neck as he glanced back around. Behind them was the crime scene, in front apartment complexes. What he was feeling was almost like what would happen before the girl in the box would appear, but she didn’t. This feeling didn’t even equate to what he felt when he knew his father was watching him when he was younger. Instead, it felt sickening, like someone was on the hunt.

“Bright, you good?” He turned to Dani who stood next to him. He could tell she was worried, while her face was blank her eyes were expressive. He never wanted to tell her that her eyes told him more than her words did, because he feared that if he did, she would shut down even more than when they’d falsely arrested him.

Malcolm forced a smile onto his face, one that he hoped was convincing but by the look on Dani’s face he knew wasn’t.

“Never better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own anything to do with Prodigal Son, only original characters that appear. Song title lyric from "All The Things I've Done" by The Killers.  
> Thank you to everyone who has read this so far, and to my friends who have supported me.


	3. Most of Us Are Strangers (Who Want Someone to Save Us)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Anxiety feeling. Not super bad, but if wanting to skip it, I will bolding a couple words before it starts to when it stops. The feeling is between the dialogue.  
> Song for title: Most of Us Are Strangers - Seafret (Acoustic).  
> Song for chapter: Xorka - Oskar Schuster.

**October**

JT looked around at everyone as they sat down in their chairs around the table. It was three hours after they had split up at the crime scene, each going off in their own direction. He noticed Gil had a cup of what had to be the precincts microwaved coffee, Dani had a new mug of tea, most likely from the small shop down the street. Bright had a pen, staring down at a notebook and clicking the end incessantly, bags under his eyes standing out dark on his pale skin. “Vic is Johnathan Stathmore, age twenty-two.” JT pinned up the picture they had gotten from the University of the victim. The boy had dark eyes and hair, strands of it falling down into his eyes. He looked like every other kid trying to get somewhere in a world that was against them, a smile of his face but his eyes screaming. “Goes to NYU, Journalism. Originally from Nevada.”

They all knew his type, the kind to come to New York trying to get somewhere. Sadly, it was a familiar story, too many people had died in that way. Gil muttered _poor kid_ as he wrote some of the information on the pad in front of him. From where JT stood, he could see what Gil had underlined: _call the parents_.

“When was he reported missing?” Bright asked without looking over at JT, instead staring intensely at the photograph as though the boy would open his mouth and spill the reason that he was dead, laying down in the morgue instead of attending classes. The smile on the boy’s face wasn’t one forced that all his school IDs had been, but instead appeared genuinely happy.

Malcolm pulled his eyes away from the boy to look over at JT, standing with his arms crossed. “When was he reported missing?” His eyes went back over to Johnathan. His collar was perfectly pressed, his snapback had the logo for the New York Giants on it with the gold sticker that generally came with them still in its place.

“Last night.” Gils eyebrows raised, Dani looked startled, but Malcolm kept his face neutral. It was one of the things he knew he had gotten from his mother, the mask she would put on in public. It was often handy in situations like these, where he could almost see himself looking back. “Apparently he’d hide in his dorm for days a time. His friends realized something was wrong when he wasn’t responding to calls, texts, or showing up on their video game streams. Called in for a wellness check and Johnathan wasn’t there.”

Dani sighed, making off one thing on the notes she had in front of her before standing up. “I can talk to his friends.”

“Bright will go with you,” Gil said from his seat, both the man in question and Dani looked over at him. “JT and I will call the parents, don’t want them to find out because of the news.” All of them got up and started to split off. Malcolm followed Dani towards the elevator.

Unlike this morning where they had talked while driving with music in the background, it was now silent. Both had gone into work mode, where they didn’t want anything that could possibly distract them to do just that. The subtle bouncing of Malcolm’s knee was the only thing that broke the silence, the sound of his dress pants rubbings against the fibres of the cars seat. When Dani looked over at him, she could see that his eyes were trained out the window next to him, watching the people as they walk around oblivious to the death that walked the streets among them. In the reflection, she knew he was lost in his own brain.

New York was a large place, the United States even larger. Violence was something that appeared to be shocking, accidental, something that would never happen but when it did caused outrage because _how could someone do this? Cause so much pain?_ But in reality, Malcolm could see it as it haunted the others outside of his bubble. The black cloud waiting to strike at random, the mist of lives lost where the living walked carelessly. He wondered if they even knew how many had been killed on that very sidewalk.

“You good?” Dani broke him out from his reprieve. Dani hadn’t taken her eyes off the road when she said this, scrunching up her nose in annoyance as someone cut in front of her but never voicing the outrage that most other city drivers would. That was one of the things Malcolm had liked about Dani since he’d known her, _over a year now_ , he thought. She didn’t voice what annoyed her, but he could tell by the expressions on her face, micro or otherwise

“I’m good.”

“Night terrors?” She knew him too well.

“Just memories.” It wasn’t the truth, but it wasn’t a lie. They were memories, memories that had morphed with another to create a whole new world of horror just for him. Silence eclipsed the few words they had exchanged, and for the rest of the ride they didn’t speak. Occasionally in the reflection of the window, Malcolm would watch emotions flicker across her eyes as people walked out into the street or drove in ways that weren’t completely legal. Thankfully they had missed the busy period of the day or avoided the busy period as much as they could in a city that was always moving.

Different memories, ones of days only eleven years early, started to assault his brain as they drove into the parking lot. Students were milling about, lounging in their cars or talking around them as they enjoyed the heat of the sun that was brought by the lack of clouds in the sky – all signs of the early morning rainstorm erased. Soon the sun wouldn’t be as enjoyable, as winter came in so would the light that felt like it brought cold rather than warmth.

The early days of University had been enjoyable to Malcolm. It had been the days where he was simply Malcolm Bright, not Malcolm Whitly the son of The Surgeon. He got to sit in cars with friends to eat lunch and talk about the latest social media blunder, get invited to parties and talk about the people they wanted to hit up or how they were going to smuggle in alcohol while being underaged. It still hadn’t been the best time; the night terrors had come back with a vengeance due to the change in scenery and he lived off campus in an apartment rented by his mother so that he would not wake up the rest of the building while he screamed; but it was still more enjoyable than secondary school. Secondary school still caused his hand to shake, memories he had tried to work through with Gabrielle. Yes, they still felt more painful than even seeing the girl in the box. At his first secondary school he’d been known as _the serial killer’s son_ or _The Surgeon two point oh._

Halfway towards the dorm building, the security guard in front of him talking to Dani, Malcolm stopped. Off in the distance he saw something peculiar. Standing off to the side in the grass was Ainsley, her bear in one hand and another figure, smaller, standing behind her obscured from view. His head tilted, trying to calculate how she was there and why she was once again a child when she was really twenty-seven.

“Malcolm, come play!” She yelled; her hand held out.

“Bright, you okay?” He stopped, realizing that he was about to start walking towards the figure in the grass. Sitting there where his sister had been was a group of girls, sitting on a blanket with Starbucks drinks in hand. Dani put a hand on his arm, looking at his face and calculating if he could really be there or he needed to be sent home.

Quickly, he schooled his features to that the shock wouldn’t be noticeable. If she noticed what he’d done, Dani didn’t comment. “I’m good, thought I saw something.” In front of them, security looked annoyed at the stop. The two started walking again, speeding up to be in step with the man in uniform. “Did you ever meet Mr. Strathmore before?”

“Nope.” The man’s voice was gruff. “Try to avoid these kids if I can help it. Think they’re adults now, don’t know the real world if it hit them over the head.”

* * *

When the police had finally decided it worthwhile to talk to her, it didn’t take as long as Estelle had expected. She told them that she had literally tripped over the body, they were skeptical because who doesn’t watch where they’re running? Only a short while later she could finally go back a block to her apartment, and during that walk realized that leaving the house definitely wasn’t worth it.

After a lengthy shower of about five minutes, then getting yelled at by one of her roommates for taking five minutes because hot water is very important, Estelle headed off towards her job. The subway was only a couple of blocks away from her home and walking past the spot where the body had been only hours before, there was nothing. Everyone continued walking by, talking on the phone, smoking, as though nothing had ever happened.

She worked at a small bookstore, a hole in the wall that got just enough foot traffic to stay open. One of those places that didn’t sell the new books all the kids wanted, but bookshop that had the classics and special editions that collectors dreamed out. Antony never said how they got the books, ones with signatures from those who had died years before, but Estelle wasn’t the most curious either. The store was also a nice place to work because they didn’t always expect her there. While it was _technically_ mandatory that there were two in the store at all times, Antony knew that sometimes Estelle just couldn’t get up. Therefore, he always scheduled her with Berry, because Berry would work no matter what condition as long as he was paid cash.

Berry looked up from his spot at the desk when she walked in but looked back down after a second. The only notice that he actually confirmed that she was there was the arm that reached over to put her name by the date on the calendar that sat on the desk below the iPad. Her bag went behind the counter, her phone in her pocket even though she had lost her earbuds at some point between that morning and that moment. A box of books from the storage room in her arms, and Estelle headed off to the back of the store to organize and place some of the new/old editions that they had gotten.

Estelle’s shifts consisted of helping the rare customer that came in, organization, making lists of the books they had, the years they were published, the editions that they had in the collection. Sometimes she would take photographs of them, writing down all the imperfections so that if someone tried to trade one for a copy of their own Antony would be able to tell. New books were inputted into the online catalogue first, but Estelle had grabbed a box she knew she’d done the day before.

Shipments of new books were rare, only once had she seen an actual truck bring in books. Janelle, a girl that had worked there when Estelle had first started but mysteriously stopped weeks after, had said that mobs brought in the books, men who needed quick cash and had beautiful books to trade for it. Estelle didn’t know how much she believed that, never having seen it herself. But if the store was run by some sort of gang that loved books, it made sense why it was still open and able to operate in the way that it did.

In the distance, behind the sounds of cars driving by and people yelling on the streets, she heard the tinkling sound of the door being opened. Berry said nothing, he never did, and she silently hoped that the people wouldn’t leave because of his off-putting attitude. When Antony worked with them both, which was rare but did happen, he usually put her upfront since Estelle was friendlier, made an effort to talk to the people who came in even on the days when all she wanted to do was shut herself off from the world.

“Do you have anything on crime.” Turning, Estelle came face to face with the couple who came into the store. She nodded and walked them over to a set of shelves not far from the front, where Berry could still see them when he looked up from underneath his eyelashes. “thanks.”

She made her way back to her box of books, weaving her way through stacks of books that didn’t fit on the shelves, so they made their way to the floor. Estelle had just grabbed a copy of _War and Peace_ when the two were back. The girl’s dark eyes were annoyed as she looked on at Estelle, but the boy behind her with red hair looked more nervous than anything.

“Those books are all fiction.”

“Yes.” Estelle replied, eyes looking up at the titles in front of her, skipping down as the tried to find the section for T, but noting that most of it had been messed up since she last organized.

“I wanted true crime.”

“I’m sorry,” Estelle turned to look at her, the girl’s caramel skin was highlighted in the sunlight coming through the window, as was the fire in the boys red hair. “If we have anything on true crime it will be with the non-fiction section near the front. Unfortunately, we don’t have a section devoted to that.”

“Why not?”

The boys flickered around with recognition as she replied, “this is a rare bookstore, we don’t generally have in books that are new or published within the last decade. I would suggest Barnes and Nobles or The Strand, they may have more of what you are looking for.”

The girl pursed her lips, and the boy grabbed her hand, tugging. She shot him a look, and Estelle quickly slid _War and Peace_ in beside _Anna Karenina_ while they communicated silently as her parents once had. “We’re looking for information on the 2003 New York disappearance.” Estelle shot the girl a look as she wracked her brain. “You know what that is, right?”

“No, sorry.” Estelle replied. This time it was the boy who looked shocked at her, green eyes open wide.

“But you’re a girl, girls are always obsessed with true crime.” The girl with him turned to give him a look, and Estelle studied them as she did. They reminded her of her parents, bickering and correcting each other, but still full of love. There was no malice in the girl’s eyes, only annoyance.

“In 2003,” the girl turned back around, “a bunch of kids around the city started disappearing. They called it the New York disappearance because it was only here, really, in the city.” The boy nodded a long with her.

“At least five or six kids disappeared before they finally started to notice.” He pipped up before grabbing a copy of _Treasure Island_ and flipping through, haphazardly throwing it aside moments later. The girl nodded along this time instead of appearing annoyed at him.

She spoke again, realizing her partner wasn’t going to finish. “Generally, the kids were taken from around poorer neighbourhoods. Marginalized kids that the police didn’t care about because their parents were in shit situations.”

Estelle felt like she knew the story, had seen the headlines, but didn’t know where she would have. **In 2003 she was four** , and she couldn’t remember anything from that period of her life except that it was dark and cold. Yet, she felt cold bloom in her chest, her brain itch, a feeling that wasn’t unfamiliar but still unpleasant. Her brain wracked for a reason why, but the feelings just started and wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t like she read about whenever she picked up her old psychology textbook. The feeling wasn’t warm, it didn’t make her feel like she was going to boil in her own skin. Instead, it made her want to curl up, cry under a pile of blankets or lay frozen and watch out the window while the rain fell down.

It was a feeling that made her want her mother, only to remember that her mother wasn’t there to protect her anymore.

“That’s terrible.” Estelle replied in a flat voice after a moment, turning around and busying herself grabbing another book so the couple couldn’t see the shaking of her hands.

“Nobody noticed, nobody cared about these kids. That’s until some rich kid was taken.” Despite the venom in her voice, Estelle could tell that in a normal conversation the girls voice would have sounded quite soft. “The kidnappers were feeling cocky. They got away with these kids, so why not another one. A media frenzy was made for the rich kid, and that’s when it came out that other kids had been taken before. Nobody was surprised when suddenly sympathy started pouring in. There were searches, statewide, then the whole East Coast. Nothing ever came of it.”

The ice was making its way out of Estelle’s chest, slowly following her veins down and into her fingertips, into her toes. It wrapped itself around her neck like a scarf, not yet chocking but letting her know that it was there. She didn’t know where this was coming from, why it was here but all she wanted was for these people to leave, **to stop talking.** “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want more information on it. Internet sleuths haven’t looked, only caring about killers from the 80s. But there must be something. Plus, I’ve seen you before.” Estelle looked over, confused, fearful. “We were in a class together, once upon a time. And back then I realized you looked familiar; I never knew why until now.”

She wanted to yell for Berry, because it was getting to a point that Estelle couldn’t handle. Part of her wondered if these people stalked her. They weren’t in class together now, and even if they had been how did this girl know where she worked? The girl watched on as the colour drained from Estelle’s face, her eyes piecing, calculating. She looked down at her phone, scrolling for a moment before she pulled up a picture of a young girl, black and white newspaper photograph but one Estelle knew.

“Does the dark scare you? Cause you to tense up in fear as though it is going to swallow you whole?”

“Excuse me?” Estelle’s confusion was evident, and the boy looked as though he was trying to stifle a laugh. “The dark as in void of light, or the dark as in horror, evil?”

“You’re thinking too much.” The girl shook her head, curls bouncing. “The dark as in you can’t see anything, night, bedtime, eyes are closed, dark.”

Estelle’s thoughts went to the fairy lights she had hung around her room as a child, night lights that shone the galaxy around the room to make it so she could see the stars without going outside in the dead of winter. Even the green glowing stars above her bed that never glowed because the window barely let in light. Strips of LED lights that they had bought cheaply from amazon were around the edges of all rooms in the apartment, lighting it up even on the darkest of days.

“Yes, and your point? Lots of people are scared of the dark.”

“You remember people, their essence. Calm, relaxing, but you can’t see them anymore. Features blend together, underdeveloped memories brought out by the dark.”

“What do you want? I don’t enjoy being analyzed and I have a job.” She glanced above the girl’s head at the clock on the wall and was surprised to see that only ten minutes had past while it felt like a lot more.

“I feel that too, same with James,” she motioned at the red head behind her. “We can’t remember where we came from. I remember going to central park with a woman with no face but my brain tells me she is mom. She could sing, smelt like clean laundry and stale coffee. Yet, she isn’t my mom. My mom smells like Elizabeth Taylor perfume, hasn’t set foot in New York City, let alone central park, in her life.”

Estelle shook her head. “It’s probably just a dream so lifelike that you’re mixing it up with reality.”

“It’s not a dream.” The girl snapped, obviously having heard this line before and not wanting any part in it yet again. “Look,” she took a deep breath. “There are others like us, that have found photos that they think are of themselves yet are of children that went missing long ago. We’re meeting tomorrow night, just come if your curious, okay?”

Against her better judgement, Estelle handed the girl her phone and watched as she typed in an address into maps before screen capturing it. “It’s at eight.”

Estelle nodded, and the two turned to leave. The boy muttered something about going to Barnes and Nobles, it was only a subway stop away what was the harm. The girl shook her head though and turned back to look at Estelle who had once again turned around to her box of books she’d forgotten about. “My name Perdita, by the way. Nice to meet you, Estelle.”

Before the blue-eyed girl could question how this stranger knew her name, they disappeared behind stacks of books. She turned to look out the window, wondering if in fact this was all a dream was or if she had hit her head harder than she thought.

* * *

“Parents said he was a quiet kid. Adopted him when he was six.” JT didn’t look up from his notes as he spoke, “One day he wasn’t there, then bam suddenly appeared in the desert, abandoned. Clothes were too small, torn up, completely soiled. Didn’t know his own name or where he was. Cops thought he was dumped, but they never found who left him there.”

Malcolm looked over at Gil, who at this point may have spoken up already, but was instead staring at the board to the young boys whose picture was engrained in all of their brains. Malcolm knew that Gil never forgot the face of a victim, wanted to show that they were more than a statistic. That someone was out there looking.

“In the desert?” Asked Dani. “Why would he be in the desert?”

“Aliens? Who knows?” JT shrugged, “still fucked up, if you ask me. Always was a quiet kid, good grades, loved video games but more of the exploring type than the violent type. Apparently, NYU was his first-choice school even though they wanted him to stay close to home. Grades started to drop though this last semester, he wanted to drop out but they told him to stick it out and if he didn’t like it by December they’d let him come home.”

Gil nodded, finally looking over at JT before looking over at Malcolm and meeting his eyes. Malcolm knew that he wasn’t the only one who saw himself in Johnathan. They may not have looked alike, nor did they really have the same interests, but it was the same sense. Malcolm hadn’t wanted to stay at Harvard either, but Gil had the same answer. _Stick it out, kid. If you don’t like it by the end of the semester you can come home_.

“Powell?” Dani sat up straighter, looking at the shorthand notes she had made earlier in the day.

“Good kid, quiet, shy. Friends said once they got him talking though he wouldn’t shut up. He’d always been interested in school, but suddenly he started talking more about crime. Asking about statistics, following the criminology professors around the school even though he was in business. Apparently, he’d been starting to act paranoid, watching behind him, refusing to eat anything that someone else didn’t test for him first. They all went to coney island for the weekend, hadn’t heard from him since.”

She kept talking, but Malcolm had heard it when the boys had told them early. Instead, he stood up and walked over to their board. It felt as though the boy was watching him, asking him to figure out how he died. That’s how he felt most of the time with the victims, but this one was different, and Malcolm couldn’t put a finger on it.

That was when movement through the window caught his eye. It was a flutter, but enough to cause him to look out through the shutters. The building was crowded, a new drug bust bringing in many cops with many members of some gang. In the middle though was a little girl, standing there staring right back at him. She held out her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Prodigal Son.


	4. The World is Full of Obvious Things Which Nobody by Any Chance Ever Observes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from The Hounds of Baskerville by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  
> Song for the chapter: Night after Night by Laura Marling  
> Decode – Paramore (Acoustic)

**October**

As he walked, Malcolm trailed his finger along the bumpy spines of the books. They weren’t uniform, some sticking out more than others. Some spines were only paper, some plastic, some fabric. Occasionally his finger would lightly catch on a ripped dust jacket, the old leather of a cover deteriorating; but Malcolm would simply pat it back into place before moving on. From early on in his life, Malcolm had learnt that every book was beautiful in its own way. His father had taught him that, surrounded by the books that had been in his mother’s family for centuries.

Even the ones in his father’s study, medical books from his days in University and medical school. Old copies of texts no longer in print in 1997, let alone 2020. The texts were from old professors, from his father. Malcolm had only met his grandfather Whitly once, his father and him being estranged and all. Yet, coming from a long line of surgeons his father had inherited his grandfather’s books, and his fathers before him – no matter the fact that they didn’t talk anymore at his death. All the books had shown the marks of being reread for years, and it had always been a comfort to Malcolm. Books that had been well loved instead of books used for decoration, looking sterile on a dust free shelf, the only spots clear where books had been pulled out and placed back again.

Malcolm hadn’t exactly meant to come to this store. He’d been here once before, he though, it looked familiar but the familiar like you’re looking through fogged glass. He could tell by the feeling, but what was in front of him didn’t match any of his memories. _Probably something with my father, that I blocked_ , he thought to himself as he continued down the aisle. He’d originally been looking for a coffee shop, one that was down a couple of blocks from the precinct that he knew Dani liked. The coffee – or tea in the case of Dani – was more for the others benefit than himself. Yes, he needed the caffeine because he wasn’t sleeping again, but also, they generally assumed when he went there that he got something small to eat also. Well at least Dani and JT did. Or at least JT, Dani was probably over his shit by now.

Shopping had never been his sort of thing. It was something Ainsley and his mother did to bond, something that he was forced to do when he needed new clothes because he wasn’t going to wear whatever his mother picked out for him (he’d learnt that lesson too many times, the most recent being the white suit). He had always preferred to stay home and read, and when he was really young play video games or with Legos. Yet, Malcolm had always liked bookstores because there were so many books, so many worlds to jump into at a moment’s notice. That had always been his mother’s bribe, no matter his age, _come get some new clothes and I’ll get you a new book; come help me pick some new drapes and I’ll get you that special edition Gregory Maguire you’re always talking about_.

Whenever he needed to get Christmas presents, either he would write a list and give money to Luisa or he would get the nanny (when he was young) or ask Gil and Jackie to take him. They knew what to do, get in and get out. He was never one to wander around without a purpose, instead letting lists and tasks do the job for him. This bookstore was one of the only times in his recent memory that he’d gone somewhere without a sole task. It was almost daunting, until he remembered what he needed to get that he’d been putting off.

When giving the gift to his mother, like every year, he would claim that it was a late birthday present. A book that she’d probably never read. A present that was solely unneeded since she could really buy herself whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. In the past, this present was sometimes the only communication they would have in months. Her FaceTiming him while she opened it, tears in her eyes but not shedding because even though he was in his thirties, she had the idea that she still needed to be strong for him. It was the time of year that always hurt the most. End of September, early October. The four weeks when all the pain hit at once. His father turning out to be a serial killer. The disappearance. Malcolm’s mother had always tried to hide the pain from him, to tough it out alone, but he was glad she wouldn’t be alone this year. And even though the present was something that he had always done to show that while he wasn’t there with her physical, he was still thinking of her.

Inside the store, nobody was sitting at the checkout desk. There was the appearance of abandonment, a layer of dust sat on all the surfaces. In some corners, there were cobwebs that shone when the light hit them. Walking in there was almost foreboding, as though something was going to pop out, as though he was walking into a warehouse that a known killer was hiding in. He walked through some of the isles, books coming at him from all corners. Almost feeling claustrophobic instead of welcoming.

Malcolm was hoping that something would pop out at him, something would either scream _Jessica Whitly would actually read this_ or _expensive so obviously a Whitly would have it_. Reaching over, he pulled out a copy of _The Hounds of Baskerville_. The inside cover and page had inscriptions of different names, class dates, years. A history only knowable to those who were there, a small window to glimpse at through the pages. It wasn’t a book his mother would read, though; she didn’t like murder of mystery, it was more something Gil would like. Keeping that in mind, he held onto it, knowing that he could give to Gil at Christmas in a few months’ time.

“Maybe I’ll just actually accompany her to a society function.” He muttered aloud to no one in particular. Behind the whizzing of the central air system, he could hear the faint footsteps of another person. He continued down the aisle before stopping at the windows that looked out into the city. The sky was starting to cloud over, the sun giving way to the overcast that would eventually bring rain. Behind him, he heard the footsteps get louder until they finally stopped a few meters away. His hand twitched towards his side where he had kept his firearm. Over a year since he had been fired from the FBI and his central instinct was still to go for the weapon when his back was turned. Yet he preferred words to violence, but it had always been a small comfort knowing that he could protect himself at any moment he needed to.

“Do you need any help finding anything?” A voice behind him spoke up. He turned quickly, feeling one of the hairs that had been perfectly placed back fall away a bit. There stood a girl, obviously someone who worked there if he was judging by her question. Large blue eyes, almost like one of the old china dolls in the attic. Brown hair pulled up into a bun, though a few errant curls had escaped and hung down by her face. She was completely unthreatening, small enough that the large box of books by her feet looked as though it could crush her.

The voice in his head, the one that used to sound like he had imagined Sophie Sanders to talk like, was starting to sound more and more like his father. Calculating the people that he came into contact with, reminding him that just because someone looked unthreatening didn’t mean they were. He ignored that voice, and instead focused on one that sounded more like Gabrielle: the girl looked harmless. Look at the positives, not the negatives.

Malcolm offered her a tight smile before replying, “I’m just looking.” She offered him a nod of understanding. He noticed that she was rubbing her thumb and forefinger together, every couple of seconds flicking them silently. _Anxious tick?_ He thought to himself, then shook himself mentally for trying to profile people without needing to.

“Let me know.” She replied then bent down to pick back up the box. Before Malcolm could comprehend, his mouth speaking before his brain could stop it.

“Wait. I’m uh,” he rubbed the back of his neck, trying to figure out his next words. “I’m trying to find something for my mother.”

She nodded, standing back up, a thoughtful look her on face. “What does she like?”

“Umm…” he didn’t know what she liked. Malcolm had never actually _seen_ his mother read, though he knew she must because occasionally he would see bookmarks in different areas, bookstore bags in the recycling. “Classics?” He finally said. “Rare books, I guess? Umm, I know she occasionally will look at the stuff she would have read as a kid.” She looked thoughtfully past him to the outside world. Malcolm wondered if maybe he shouldn’t be there. He didn’t want to look at his watch, lest she think he is rushing her, but he hoped that nobody noticed he’d been gone for too long. He didn’t need someone to come trying to find him, questioning why he was in search of a book in a store that looked as though it had seen better days.

Suddenly she turned, leaving the box behind as she walked with purpose through the aisles. Malcolm was startled for a moment, frozen, before his feet were moving. It didn’t take him long to catch up to her, his legs were longer than hers. He matched her stride, slightly behind her. They slowly descended towards the back of the store; the building deeper than he had realized. As they walked, the aisles became tighter, books stacked on top of shelves over their heads, tucked in on every available piece of space.

This was a place where you had to search for what you wanted, he realized. There was no logic in the area they were in. Categories had been forgone for there simply being books. Nothing was split between adult and child as he saw an old copy of _The Hunger Games_ sitting beside _Anne of Green Gables_. It was completely different than what he was used to. Everything he was used to was in order, everything had a place; yet here there were no places, because everything was a book: equal.

 _““_ In a corner of the bedroom is a great big curtain, / someone lives behind it, but I don’t know who; / I think it is a Brownie, but I’m not quite certain. / (Nanny isn’t certain, too.)” _”_ Malcolm started, looking over at her. She looked at him expectantly, a small smile on her face. She handed over a small red book to him. “That’s from a poem called “Brownie” by A.A. Milne. It’s from his first collection of children’s poetry called _When We Were Very Young_. Originally it was published in 1924. This copy is a reprint from 1927, around the time the sequel was published. Rare in the fact that not many people are looking for books related to Winnie The Pooh. You can probably find some copies of it circulating around on eBay.”

Malcolm flipped it softly in his hands, looking at the book intently. He turned the pages softly, looking at the black and white pictures of a boy and his friends staring up at him. The front cover had a small Christmas message inscribed on the top left corner, but other than that it was free of marks of the previous owners.

“Wow,” he said softly, then realizing she was looking at him with her head tilted slightly fingers still rubbing together at her side, he cleared his throat. “It’s perfect.” She beamed, obviously proud of herself for finding something for him that was a success. Malcolm briefly wondered how many customers she actually gets to help, if maybe he was a rare occurrence.

“I’ll let you hang out for a bit,” she turned to pass him, “let me know if you need anything else.” The girl disappeared behind the books. Malcolm looked down at the small book in his hands, really the two as he remembered he still _The Hounds of Baskerville_ tucked between his side and elbow. Suddenly, he heard giggling as flashes of blue sky and green grass appeared in his vision. He blinked to bring himself back, pushed the sounds to the back of his mind. He tries to think of them as a leaf, as Gabrielle had taught him when he was younger. He had to let them float by.

Once he felt calm again, like his feet were planted fully in this world, he slowly walked through the maze of books back towards the front. He stopped a couple more times, not following another person this time so having the leisure to do so. Though when he looked at his watch and realize the was over thirty minutes late to the precinct from when he said he would leave, he hurried to the desk. He was surprised though, when he turned the corner and instead of the girl from before there was a man sitting there staring at a computer with a scowl on his face.

 _“_ Uh, hi.” Malcolm gave him a little wave as the man looked up. “Where did the girl go? I thought she was the only one here?”

The man had a bored expression on his face as he looked at Malcolm. “What girl?”

“She helped me find my books,” he placed them on the counter. “Curly hair? Floral sweater?”

“Sorry bro, don’t know who you’re talking about.” He looked back down at the ipad, typing on a keyboard hooked up wirelessly.

Malcolm looked around as the man grabbed his books and started to input some information into the computer for check out. Malcolm started to wonder if he really did see a girl, or if someone was messing with him. That someone being his brain.

* * *

Malcolm tending to pride himself, though his mother would have him locked up for it, at being pretty desensitized to crime scenes. Often the murders intrigued him, the puzzle of it all overriding his gag reflex and his fight or flight. He knew they bothered JT, Dani, and Gil a lot more than him. He could see it in the way they fidgeted around a dead body slowly decaying, Dani would look away, JT looking up slightly, and Gil would have sadness in his eyes that he would try and cover.

Decompression after a crime scene was what they needed. He would go home and watch True Crime documentaries into the early mornings as insomnia set in. Malcolm didn’t want to think, wanted to continue the puzzle. He wanted to know how their minds worked, how the cops caught the bad guys. He knew JT would go home to his wife; a life so far removed from murder that they were completely different worlds. Dani would go home to watch a comedy (she’d been trying to get him to watch _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ for months), sometimes go for drinks with her friends. Gil would go home to a good book, one that was fantasy or sci-fi, sometimes mystery but rarely thriller or horror. Malcolm knew that lately Gil had been going to his mother’s home, and he didn’t even want to think about what they did late into the night.

Malcolm was the only one that hadn’t flinched when they dropped down into the sewer. It had been almost twelve hours since the first body had been found, but they had been called out for another. City workers had found it when coming for a routine check. Even from where he was standing, Malcolm felt his stomach drop. It wasn’t the smell; it wasn’t the fact that a dead man laid in front of him. It was the fact that it was one gunshot wound to the forehead, eyes open in terror with the tracks from their tears shinning under the work lamps. The body was fresh, rigor mortis had only just set in.

“Only sign of a struggle is the marks on his wrist.” Edrisa’s voice interrupted his thoughts. The bruises were purple, faint outlines of fingers but not enough for fingerprints. Malcolm flicked his eyes up to the head, and his feeling of foreboding became worse. Before he hadn’t fully comprehended but now he could tell that laying there was Ritchie Fuentes. More lights were turned on, he felt Gil step up to him, not knowing how Malcolm would react to knowing how he died, considering how he reacted with Eve. “I won’t be sure if it was the same type of gun that was used on Mr. Strathmore until we’re back in the lab and I can run tests.”

Malcolm looked around at the surrounding areas. There weren’t any signs of a struggle there, on the sides of the sewer floor or walls. He’d had to have been killed there, not moved like with Strathmore, it would have been impossible to move him down here without anyone noticing. “It’s clean.” He muttered. Dani turned to him, eyebrow raised as if in a challenge.

“Dude,” JT looked at him with his usual look of _what the fuck kind of drugs are you on_ , “We’re in the _sewers_. Nothing is clean down here.” He kicked an old can left down there by squatters, letting it plop into the stream going past. “See that? It’s _sewer water_.” He continued muttering, to quiet for them to here.

“JT.” Gil warned, but said nothing more as he looked at Malcolm to continue.

“I meant,” Malcolm gave the other man a look, trying to convey that he should let him finish before going off on how his idea was crazy. “That the area around the body is clean. Obviously not completely clean in the way you or I would define the word. Bleach probably couldn’t even clean it. Yet, it’s cleaner than anything else around it.”

“More light!” Gil yelled and lights were turned on, this clicking and thudding echoing around them. Everyone noticed it then, that Malcolm was telling the truth. There was a clean line where the grunge ended, and the cleaner grunge that surrounded the body started. Even on the walls, there were spots that were cleaner than others.

Edrisa’s eyes went wide as she quickly stood up and turned to her team and yelled, “I need swabs!”

“Who called this in?” Dani turned to look at JT.

“How would I know?” He asked, but then replied, “The city workers. They were down here for a routine check, easiest just after rush hour. Good thing, I suppose. Who knows when the poor kid would have been found, otherwise.

Dani nodded, and looked down at the man on the ground. While they hadn’t given him much thought besides being a witness that morning, she could now see that he couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. His hair was cut short, just a couple of centimeters longer than a buzz cut.

Once they had figured out all they could, and Edrisa assuring them that her team would have get everything back to the morgue, they started back towards the entrance. “Malcolm!” His head popped up, looking over towards Dani and JT a few feet in front of him, deep in conversation. Gil was ahead of them, talking to the cops who were going to stay on the scene until Edrisa had everything cleared away. Malcolm glanced behind himself as well but saw Edrisa was once again working with the body, others photographing the scene around her.

He shook his head, deciding that it was just a lack of sleep combined with the fumes the sewer water was admitting. “Malcolm!” He heard it again, but this time more frantic. “Malcolm, help me!”

Malcolm looked up once more, but this time towards the sewer water instead of his colleagues. In the murky water he saw a small head, curls floating on the surface. “Help me! Please!” He surged forward, pushing past Dani and JT, ignoring their questioning voices as he went towards the edge. He was stopped though, by a hand grabbing the back of his coat and yanking him back to the tiled ground. He was suddenly against the wall, far away from the waters edge. He could feel the grime coating his hair, and he knew he’d have to burn his coat later.

“What the hell, man!” JT yelled. Dani looked at him in concern, and Gil rushed over with a look of annoyance laced with worry. Malcolm looked over JT’s shoulder, back at the water. But realized that there was only a lone diaper floating down the sewer river, bobbing up and down, a picture of some Disney princess almost completely obscured.

“Sorry I-”

“Am going batshit?” JT said at the same time as Gil replied with “Better have a good explanation?”

Malcolm winced, “thought I saw something.”

JT shook his head, letting him go from the wall and muttering about crazy profilers.

“Are you sure you’re good?” Dani was standing beside him now, looking up at him with concerned eyes. “You’d tell me if you weren’t?”

Malcolm debated whether or not it would be beneficial to tell her the truth. On one hand, someone else would know what was going on. He hadn’t been seeing Gabrielle lately, he probably just needed to talk to someone. On the other hand, he didn’t want her to think he was any crazier than she already did. Crazy profiler first goes after serial killer in abandoned tunnel alone, then almost jumps in the sewer? Definitely not something he could walk away from and brush off. Malcolm also was aware that he probably shouldn’t have been working, should be locked up somewhere like his father. Too many things happened in his life for him to be okay. He didn’t know if he would ever be their definition of okay.

“I’m fine, the fumes were getting to me. We better get out of here.”

Dani gave him a look, following JT up the ladder. But when he looked over at Gil, he knew that he wouldn’t be getting out of it that easily.


	5. Did Some Things You Can't Speak Of (But At Night You Live it all Again)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title Song: Innocent - Taylor Swift  
> Chapter Song: Honey Bee - Diana Roze

“Ritchie Fuentes, age 23.” Gil clipped the new photo onto the board below the photo of Johnathan. 

“ He was reported missing by his roommate yesterday afternoon. We’ve been unable to locate any family.” JT added from his spot, looking down at the file in front of him. “Officer Delmont went to get the roommates statements. Apparently, he’d gone to his girlfriend’s place for a couple of days, but promised he’d be back in time for some movie night. Never called, girlfriend said he had left.” 

Malcolm stared at the pictures, eyes going between the two victims as he tried to decern what possible motive their killer had, why these two people who appeared to lead completely separate lives were killed in the same way. 

Nobody talked about leaving the crime scene the night before, Malcolm almost running into the sewer water. Nobody talked about how he had disappeared for over an hour yesterday afternoon, only appearing right as they were leaving to go to the crime scene. From the look on Gils’s face, he ’d known where Malcolm had run off to and that was enough for JT. What bothered him was the guy almost running into the water. 

Dani hadn ’t wanted to start this meeting yet, either, because she wanted to wait for Edrisa to give them some more information to go off of. JT had made the executive decision for them all: they were going to go over it, add on when Edrisa was ready. Gil had just nodded to him, letting him take the lead on it. The sooner they started finding leads, the better. While it would have been best to take their time, with two murder victims in twenty-four hours, the brass would be breathing down their necks. The higher ups also wouldn’t want the people of New York believing there was a serial killer running around when it was probably just a coincidence.

“ Are there any similarities?” Dani looked up expectantly, pen poised over her notes.

“ Gun shots to the head, a year age difference. Similar in build but not appearance.” She nodded, looking down at the notes in front of her. “From what officer Delmont got, sounds like Ritchie moved to New York when he was fifteen.”

Malcolm looked down at the small number of papers in his file. Without a lead on who the parents were, it was hard to decern if he had any enemies from childhood. Why they had moved to the city.

Everyone sat in silence for a moment, taking sips of their own beverages as they thought over the information they had.  “Both were killed by gunshot wounds to the head. Johnathan’s was older though; he had died days before being placed. Ritchie was a fresh kill; we’d seen him that morning. I think that’s our link.” Malcolm finally said as he glanced over at everyone, lingering on Dani for a moment before looking at Gil for approval.

“ I don’t think that’s a link. It’s random.” JT replied.

“ Reasoning?”

“ Yes, wounds are the same and Ritchie found Johnathan. But that’s the only connections. Johnathan was killed days before being found, he was placed meticulously. Ritchie was killed in the sewers. Yes, it was cleaned up around him, a rush job, but he was killed today. Over twenty blocks away from each other. So, coincidence.”

“ We won’t know more until we find out more about both of these boys.” Gil replied after a moment. They all nodded, realizing that was their cue to leave the room to their separate tasks, files in hand.

* * *

For over twenty years, the imposing building in front of him caused equal amounts of joy and dread. Looking back with hindsight, Malcolm realized it really wasn ’t equal amounts, but instead the trepidation of visiting his serial killer father had overrode the happiness of being able to see his father. As a child and young teenager, Malcolm hadn’t wanted to think his father had done what everyone said he did. He wanted to go back to youthful innocence, guilt about turning his father in weighing him down like an anchor in the sea; even as an adult, when he knew better this guilt continued. He had wanted to believe that one day he would walk out of that fortress, his father holding onto his mother in one hand, him holding his hand in the other. Ainsley would be carried by his mother, something one of them often had to do because if Ainsley didn’t want to go somewhere, she wouldn’t walk. And the final piece, the one that had appeared after his father’s incarceration: his mother would be pregnant. 

Yet, that was not how things happened, nor would anything be likely to change. No matter how many years passed, the knowledge that his father was a monster was cemented into his brain more and more. His father was the boogie man, the monster under the bed, the goblin under the bridge. He was the master at acting like he was a warm, kind, cuddly man in a cardigan; yet was actually a sinister person who had cut people open just for the fun of it.

Now looking up at the building, Malcolm didn ’t feel any glimmer of joy. Instead, he just felt dread and sadness. He hadn’t visited his father since before Rikers. He hadn’t wanted to say it, but the fact that his father was unable to contact him at all time was relieving. Malcolm knew he was getting too attached to the messages, the phone calls that he hated but craved at the same time. Now Martin Whitly was back in his cushy cell, with his fancy rugs and shelves of antique medical books. He could go back to consulting patients around the world, earning money he could never spend; even though he was in the world in a way, he was still in the shadows of the world that feared him.

Malcolm wasn ’t there to visit his father though. He wasn’t ready to open that can of worms, wasn’t ready to look into what he believed a mirror. Children were impressionable, and when his father had told him that they were the same, Malcolm believed him. No, he wasn’t ready.

Malcolm was visiting Ainsley.

Ainsley hadn ’t yet been tried for Nicholas Endicott’s murder, but instead was sitting in ward Z with the rest of the female criminals. She was in the low security section, and really, they could plead insanity or even self-defense. She was being treated for her memory loss, amnesia. The fact that she couldn’t remember anything from that night, disassociated and stabbed a man to death then woke up questioning what was happening, was a good enough reason as any to start seeing a psychiatrist in a mental institution until she was allowed back with the rest of the world.

It was weird seeing her there. Hands cuffed together and attached to the middle of a table. She was in the same white jumpsuit their father wore, but she wore a pull over sweater, his old one from Harvard that she always requested whenever upset. Around her wrist was what looked like a hospital bracelet, the same white plastic with sticker on top. Only close family knew she was there, him, his mom, the team, Gil. Even his father wasn ’t aware she was there, tucked away in a corner out of his influence.

The media wasn ’t aware of how he had ended up stabbed, the NYD saying the bare minimum. Ainsley’s job thought she was simply on mental health leave, her brother being kidnapped, her mother being extorted and then her father being stabbed, to have the man her mother was “dating” (though they all used that term loosely) stabbed to death was too much. His mother had tried to get Ainsley in somewhere else, somewhere where there wouldn’t be the stigma of her sharing a last name with the surgeon, let alone sharing blood. She failed. Dani and JT had promised that they would help clear Ainsley’s name as an apology for arresting him. Gil, who was still in the hospital at the time and had just woken up from coma, had been livid when he found out what happened; not at Ainsley, but at what Endicott almost had done.

The nice thing about Ainsley being in a lower security, while still having to be chained up like everyone else, was that Malcolm was allowed to hug her. When he was younger, that was one of the things that hurt him most about his father being here, he couldn ’t give him a hug. It wasn’t like they were a hug-y family per say, but when the option was taken away you wanted to do the action more. It was only on special occasions such as birthdays, or when bad things happened (i.e., John Watkins, his father being stabbed, Gil being stabbed). But since she had been brought to this place, Malcolm had tried to hug her every time he saw her. It wasn’t just to reassure her that there were people thinking about her, his mother phoned her almost every day for that reason, but it was also to reassure himself that she was still there. To reassure himself that this wasn’t some fucked up dream, that she wasn’t going to disappear into a void that seemed to eat everyone he loved.

Murder had stolen his father.

Alcohol and pills had stolen his mother.

Death had stolen his sister.

He didn ’t want Ainsley to be stolen too.

“ How’s mother doing?” Ainsley asked once they both sat down. The chairs squeaked; fake vinyl compressing wasn’t the nicest of sounds.

“ She’s…” Malcolm wasn’t sure how to answer. He needed to craft it in a way that wouldn’t worry her. But what could he say? On one hand, he knew that he had to reassure Ainsley. To tell her that their mother was going fine. That she was happier with Gil, though not as much as she would be if Ainsley was there was well. That she was going everything in her power to get Ainsley out of this mess. Which, she was, trying to get her out of it. 

What Malcolm didn ’t want to tell Ainsley, was that he could tell that their mother was slowly breaking down. The walls she had so carefully crafted crumbling after being beaten down time after time this past year, these past twenty years. From the past year alone, from breaking her twenty-year stance on anything even remotely connected to Martin Whitly (besides their children, of course), seeing Gil again after who knows how long. 

Malcolm being kidnapped, finding out she had a murder tunnel under her house and having said murderer come after her with an axe, someone blackmailing her and causing her to see two dead bodies in under twenty-four hours, then watching him stab his own father to save her. Having Nicholas Endicott come back into her life, believing that he actually liked her only to be used by him. Watching Gil get stabbed, sitting at his bedside after surgery, coming home after a long night to find Nicholas Endicott laying in the middle of her formal sitting room, throat slit and stabbed to death. Ainsley not know what was going on, now under the same roof as her toxic serial killer father even if they weren ’t in the same area, the man not knowing she was even there; and now the anniversary of her youngest child’s death. He didn’t want Ainsley to know any of the stuff that weighed on his mind about their mother.

He didn ’t want to be the one to say that Jessica Whitly, arguably the strongest woman in the United States, was slowly breaking and he didn’t know if anyone could keep her afloat.

“ She’s mother,” Malcolm finally decided on. “She’ll make it through. She’s the strongest of us all.”

It wasn ’t a lie, but it wasn’t fully the truth. Ainsley would know if he lied, the reporter in her would be able to sniff it out quickly. She was the star for a reason. She had always been one of those people that Malcolm had never been able to trick when he lied. Even when they were younger, when his father was still believed to be a good man, if Malcolm had lied about anything while others would believe him, Ainsley would call out his bullshit.

“ God, I need to get out of here.” She groaned, leaning her head back up looking up at the cement ceiling. She slipped down into a slouch, something she would have never done if their mother was there. Her head lolled to the side, looking across the room at another girl who was with her own family. “It’s going to drive me crazy if I’m here any longer.”

“ Mother hired the best lawyers,” Malcolm tried to assure her. “They’re going for self-defense. Worst case, insanity. But self-defense looks like the best bet right now. Endicott had a gun, he had someone stab Gil. They weren’t fast enough to erase the surveillance footage of that.” Malcolm had to shove back images that started to come forward, ones of Gil laying white faced on the hospital bed, nobody sure yet if he would make it. His mother leaning over him, holding his hand, tears silently running down her face as she whispered, _I’m so sorry_ to him over and over again. “You’re going to get out of here, Ains.”

Ainsley pursed her lips and sighed heavily.  “I can’t stand the thought of _him_ knowing I’m here.” She replied as though she didn’t hear anything her brother had just said. “I don’t want him to think that I’m like him. I swear, I’m not. Malcolm, please trust me. I’m not a killer. I’m-”

“ Ainsley,” he cut her off mid ramble, “none of us think you’re like him. Nobody here even knows that you’re related to him.” It was a lie; the staff knew but the other patients didn’t. They’d placed her here under the name _Ainsley Arroyo_ , her idea not his or their mothers. _Ainsley Whitly_ and everyone would know, _Ainsley Milton_ and someone would put it together eventually. “You are not like him.” Malcolm grabbed her hands, his thumb rubbing her knuckles in a way that he hoped was soothing but just felt awkward to him. 

“ You aren’t either.” She whispered back fiercely, reading the guilt on his face. “I know what you’re thinking, Malcolm. You. are. not. like. our. father.”

He nodded absentmindedly, pulling his hands back and hiding them under the table as the tremor once again started. They lapsed back into silence, both leaning back in their chairs. Malcolm had always hated the sterile smell of this place, mixed with a scent that he couldn ’t place. It made his nose itch, his eyes water.

“ What did you get her?” Ainsley whispered. Malcolm glanced over at the warden who was motioning for everyone to wrap up their conversations. She sounded broken, and when Malcolm looked back, he saw her eyes were sadder than they had ever been. That hurt him more than he thought it would, watching the people around him fall.

“ _ When We Were Very Young _ ,” he replied. “A children’s poetry book by A.A. Milne. You know, _Winnie the Pooh_?”

“ She’ll love it.” A small smile on her face, faint but there.

“ One would hope, but you never know with mother.”

The shrill sound of a bell echoed around them, a loud buzz that reminded Malcolm more of his school years than he would like to admit. They both hesitated before standing up. The others around them saying their goodbyes.  “Hang in there, Ains. You’ll be out soon.”

“ Love you.” She said quietly before she turned and walked away. Malcolm watched for a moment, before moving towards the visitor exit.

This was not a goodbye, it was a see you soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone has been reading, I'm grateful!


	6. You're Passing Your People Like a Ship in the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song: Killer + the Sound - Phoebe Bridgers  
> TW: Malcolm's food issues

Dinner with his mother was never easy. It involved pleasantries, rules he remembered but never wanted to obey. If they were eating alone, she would be constantly worrying about his mental state. Well, she was always worrying about his mental state. But the worry would be more vocal, more intense, targeted. His mother had a way of being able to pinpoint his problems, something he’d never understood or been able to emulate. Within a couple words she would be able to tell that he hadn’t been sleeping. She’d watch his mannerisms and be able to tell if he’d been taking his medication.

Dinner with his mother and Ainsley, well, she would interrogate both of them about their lives. Often it was about if they were dating anyone, how their jobs were going, and how their friends were. His mother would also try and convince them to come to society functions with her, fancy dinners, the ballet, theatre. Occasionally they humoured her and said ‘maybe’ or ‘yes’, but usually it was a firm no. Sometimes she would be nostalgic, telling them about the parties that she had gone to in her youth. When they’d been in University, she’d constantly compare the parties that they went to and witnessed to the ones she had gone to. Sometimes she’d ask them about marriage, especially when they were dating. Both knew she secretly wanted grandchildren, no matter how much she insisted she was too young for it.

As he got older, Malcolm realized that her trying to insert herself into their lives wasn’t just some annoying mom thing. She felt guilty, he’d realized the year of her fallout with Gil. Guilty that she hadn’t cared for them like they deserved after their father was taken away. Guilty about pushing them away, hiding behind pills and booze to sooth her own shattered heart. She was trying to make up for the fact that she wasn’t the mother she should have been after finding out her husband was a serial killer. Because she hadn’t been able to cope. She just wanted to connect.

Dinner with Gil?

Malcolm wasn’t sure how dinner with Gil and his mother was going to go. Ainsley wasn’t there to run interference, something she’d become brilliant at. Instead, she was hidden away until everything with Endicott could be sorted. Even though she was at Claremont, that terrible place that was stuck in all of their nightmares, their mother attempted to make sure she was as comfortable as possible in the cement building. With Ainsley gone, no longer at dinner for the moment to unable to take the spotlight, Malcolm knew he would become the centre.

Luisa opened the door, a polite greeting muttered as he made his way in and shook his head a bit to rid it of some of the rain that had fallen from the sky moments earlier. He shot her a smile as he walked a few steps to the cupboard to put his coat inside. Malcolm was hoping that Gil would prove to be the blocker he needed to survive this dinner. _So weird_ , Malcolm thought, when any picture of Gil and his mother having dinner together went through his mind. When he was young and the loss of his father had started to soften from a bullet to a graze, Malcolm had often hoped that Gil would save his mother. No matter how much she had tried to hide it, behind a mask of high society fueled by the pills and booze that she’d hide away in her purse, Malcolm knew she was hurting and needed someone to care for her, for once. Not that she needed someone to, no, Malcolm had seen in the past year alone how much she could do without others holding her up like he’d seen his father do for years.

Something had split them, though, his mother and Gil. Something that young and old Malcolm still didn’t know. Something that he hoped one day they would trust him with. But, not how he understood that it was a private entity that didn’t involve him.

He wasn’t surprised to see Gil already there when he walked into the informal dining room, nor was he surprised to see that they were already seated. What did surprise him was to see that instead of taking the seat on his mother’s right, he had taken one on the left where Ainsley usually sat. His water was already there. Malcolm was slightly pleased, though he tried to tamper it down, that Gil had left his usually seat for him. Trying to keep the tone of the night normal even though it was anything but.

“Malcolm! Right on time, come sit.” Her smile was bright, brighter than he had thought it would be. He was also suspicious that she said that he was right on time, considering he was ten minutes late. While most would consider this not a huge inconvenience, but his mother was a stickler for punctuality. Malcolm pushed away the curious niggling at the back of his mind, locking it away with everything else behind the wall, and sat down

Almost immediately, Luisa was putting a plate in front of each of them. Some type of fancy stuffed chicken, rice, salad. Quite plain for his mother planning something with guests, but Malcolm was assuming she didn’t want to scare Gil off too much. Gil looked uncomfortable at being served. At his apartment they’d always eaten in a small table off the kitchen or in the living room. He would cook dinner for them, sometimes they’d have dessert. His mother pretending not to notice the uncomfortable Lieutenant, but he saw her watching him worried. Gil placed a hand on top of hers that was sitting on the corner of the table, a small gesture of comfort. Malcolm looked down at the food he probably wouldn’t eat.

“Did you find anything after the meeting this morning?” Gil must have been restless, Malcolm realized, as he had been off all afternoon. While he was back to work after his stabbing, he still has to go to physiotherapy to make sure everything was in working order. Malcolm wasn’t sure he was even supposed to at crime scenes, but instead sitting back in his office doing paperwork. Gil didn’t know how to rest, though, just like his mother didn’t know how not to meddle. He’d gone on vacation once or twice, the entire twenty plus years Malcolm had known him, and Jackie had to take him out of state to make sure he wouldn’t do work behind her back. Malcolm hadn’t expected him to ask about work though in front of his mother, especially a case considering he was always the one saying he shouldn’t tell his father since it was an active crime.

“You’ll find out tomorrow, nothing too important.” Malcolm finally replied.

“If you found anything out at all, it could be important.” Gil tried to rationalize.

His mother rolled her eyes, placing her red wine back on the table. Before Malcolm could speak again, and inevitable start rambling about the case, she put a hand up, “No murder at the table.”

Both men pouted for a moment, but Gil stopped when his mother gave him an unamused look. Malcolm scoffed in amusement, covering it with a cough when she turned her glare on him. Malcolm wasn’t used to having someone else be at the end of her looks, but then again, he should have expected her to turn it back on him once again.

“Malcolm,” his mother turned to look at him, grasping his left hand from where it sat beside his fork. “Have you been sleeping?” He had found throughout the years, that when in this predicament it was best to tell half-truths. She could see through his lies when this close up.

“Yes, mother.”

“More,” she started with a look, “than three hours?”

“Yes, mother.” He didn’t need to tell her that it was more like three and a half.

She nodded, more to herself than to him. She glanced over at Gil, who nodded to her reassuringly before she looked down and took a sip of her drink. Her smile went back onto her face and she nodded once more, “good.” She picked up her cutlery finally and started cutting a small piece of chicken off.

As Gil and his mother started to eat, Malcolm took a bite but otherwise pushed the food around his plate a bit. It was trick he had learnt long ago to make it look like he was eating more than he was, simply making it look like the food had been eaten. He took a few bites of plain rice as a show, as well as some of the vegetables from the salad, but otherwise he mostly just listened to the other two talk about their days.

His mother had gone to check on the women’s shelter she was anonymously developing for homeless and abused women. Then she had gone to the other homeless shelter she sponsored to checked on its progress. She had also taken a call with NYU about the scholarship she funded and about the progress on making another one to go along side it. After he’d left work, Gil had gone to his physio appointment. After that he’d gone home to change then had been watching some of the NHL preseason games.

As they talked, Malcolm saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head slightly, pretending to look at the painting of his great uncle on the wall. It they were paying enough attention; Gil and his mother would probably question why he was staring at a picture he had seen hundreds of times in his childhood. There, sitting below the photo on the more formal couch, was Layla. She as swinging her legs off the side like she had always done, small rip on the knee of her white tights, the teal dress she loved sparkling as the light hit it. Sitting beside her was her soft doll with curly brown hair like her own. Gil had given it to her once, when she was young enough not to remember. No matter how much their mother had tried to bribe her away from it with expensive soft bears after her fallout with Gil, Layla had absolutely refused.

 _Layla! Watch Out!_ Malcolm jumped and turned around to look at the entry way as a soccer ball suddenly came flying into the room. He sat in horror for a moment, before whipping his head back around when there was a crash. It was his wine glass. His movement had knocked it off the table, and it now laid on the ground between he and his mother. The glass was somehow not broken, but the red wine had spilt out and was soaking into the carpet.

“Fuck. Shit. Sorry.” He stuttered as he grabbed his napkin and started blotting at the stain that was settling. Malcolm was gently pushed away by Luisa who suddenly appeared with stain remover in her hand. She quickly attacked the stain, looking as though she had done this many times. He looked back up at his mother and Gil, both who had paused and were watching them with worried and questioning glances. “I’m fine,” he put his hands up as though defending himself, “I saw a spider.”

His mother would have looked more convinced if he had suddenly exclaimed that Martin Whitly was an innocent man. She opened her mouth to speak, but Gil held up a hand to quiet her. Malcolm had never seen someone able to do that before, be she simple lifted up her glass and took a gulp, suspicious look still on her face. 

“Did Edrisa give you an update at all?” Gil asked, breaking the silence. The room felt awkward, tense, as Luisa swiftly moved away. She muttered something quietly to Jessica, then left to go back to the kitchen.

“No,” Malcolm replied as he looked back towards the couch again, “not yet - Mother,” it was rare that part of his hallucinations turned out to be real, usually they were just wisps of air that slipped through his fingers. “What is Dolly doing out?

Jessica looked over at the couch, the one place she had been avoiding looking at all day. The numbness that her pills gave her was overtaken by a wave of despair. She threw back the wine that sat in her glass, then filling it up again more than before. She took another gulp, ignoring the look that Gil was giving her as she thought of how she would answer him. “Luisa found it when she was cleaning early today,” a lie. “She put it down there. I haven’t put her away yet.”

Silently, she cursed herself for giving the doll the pronounces that Layla had always insisted on. She hoped that Malcolm wouldn’t notice this, but he did. That was one of the ways he was like his father, the only one she would concede to: he was good at telling when she was lying. The doll had been a _she_ ever since Layla could talk: “ _Dolly needs to be called correct, mommy,” the little girls face would be serious as she stood on the couch, “its mean not to. Remember? You told me.”_

She stood up suddenly, her chair making a noise as it scraped roughly against the floor and a fork clinking as it hit a plate. Both Gil and Malcolm gave her worried looks, but she waved them off. “I’m tired, good to see you darling.” She placed a hand fleetingly on Malcolm’s shoulder before quickly moving away from the table. As she walked away, she tried to keep her face straight, she wondered if Malcolm would once again bring up work. She wasn’t there anymore to stop them, and since they were working on it together it may be valuable that Gil knows the information sooner than later. Maybe Malcolm would even let Adolpho drive him home, even if it was reluctantly, so that he didn’t have to take the subway. Gil would probably come upstairs to see if she was okay, he wouldn’t leave before that happened. At least, that was what she assumed would happen.

No matter how much reassurance Gil gave her, Jessica had the imbedded fear that she would one day turn around and he would be gone. It wasn’t unfounded, at least in her eyes. The first man she had ever loved turned out to be a serial killer, and while she wasn’t sure who his first victim was (because he obviously had more than he had admitted or was found) in her heart she felt like she was his first victim. He had destroyed the man she loved as soon as he contemplated killing, started to plan the act. Those days after he had been arrested, she had wondered whether or not she wasn’t worth it, she wasn’t enough, the life they had wasn’t enough.

And while she knew it was illogical, Jessica had started to project those fears onto Gil as soon as they had started dating. Or maybe as soon as they had met. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to realize that she wasn’t worth the pain, wasn’t worth the hassle of having a relationship with someone who had been broken beyond repair. Maybe she was cursed to cause pain to those around her.

Jessica tried to shake those feelings as she stepped one at a time up the stairs. As she reached the top, a feat that she felt monumental because she had what felt like the weight of the world dragging her under water, her hands started to shake. Shaking so badly they may have rivalled Malcolm at some points. The wine in the glass sloshed with each step, and at the first credenza she saw it was placed down. It didn’t even register that the small amount of wine that had gone over the edge had started to gather around the base. The base that sat on the polished, antique wood without a coaster. She continued to walk down the dimly lit hallway, almost in a trance as she put one foot in front of the other, hoping that the familiar and welcoming numb feeling would overtake the anguish that threatened to consume her.

 _Mommy! Look! Dolly has her own bed now!_ The haunting laughter drifted down the hallway, the joyful sounds of a small child. It was punctured by a gruff laugh that caused the hairs on the back of her neck to prickle,

 _Jessie, everything is okay. Malcolm is just tired_.

_Mom, when is dad coming home?_

Her feet planted themselves in front of the door across from her own. The door that was never opened, the handle shined from being cleaned every week along with the other empty rooms along the corridor. Without thinking, Jessica’s hand lifted up as though being guided by a string and grasped the cool metal, a slow turning motion, and it was pushed open. It had always been this time of year when all the emotions that she pushed back through the year came rushing back like a punch in the gut. Shot after shot was taken at her. Finding out Martin had fooled her for over a decade and was a serial killer. The memories of the pain that brought for the children that she tried to swallow for them so they wouldn’t have to learn how to deal with such big emotions at such a young age. It was the memories of one of her baby disappearing, like an invisible tether that connected mother to child snapping and the remains burnt to a crisp with a death certificate but no body.

The room hadn’t been changed since that day. The walls a pale pink with faint blue floral patterns; keeping with the age of the house but more modernized than it had been when Ainsley or Malcolm had been in here. A bay window overlooked the street, large unruly trees outside brushed the window with its leaves when the wind shifted. The bed was small, toddler size with a pink gauzy canopy that she’d had since birth to make her appear more like a princess than she was.

Even the toys, dolls and stuffed animals, princess capes and superhero masks, were scattered about the room. Dolls left in their beds never to leave, half-finished puzzles with pieces that had gone missing but were never forgotten.

Jessica felt the tears she had been holding back well up in her eyes, and when she closed her eyes to try and create a wall, it simply pushed them out faster. She leaned against the doorframe, letting her keep it her upright as she felt her knees shake. Jessica had spelt twenty years being a rock for her children, being strong for them because that’s what a mother did. Fake it till you make it, fake it until the fake becomes real. Yet, that “real” was a false reality that had twisted itself into oblivion. It was sand falling between her fingers, slowly becoming part of all the broken glass she stood on.

Arms were suddenly around her waist, pulling her into a strong body. A chin was resting on her shoulder, the scent of Gil’s cologne swirling around her. Looking out the window again, she realized that more time had passed than she thought as it was now fully dark outside. The pale evening sun had gone to sleep and now the sky was fully dark, no stars peeking out from behind the clouds. Only the light from the hallway behind them and the streetlamp below the window, illuminated their figures.

Her hand lifted to her face, fingertips glistening as they came away wet. She couldn’t hear anything, she realized. Only a thumping in her ears. Gil slowly turned her around, so she faced away the room, the memories. Her head tucked into his collarbone, and he held her snug to his chest. Jessica wanted to ask where that wailing noise was coming from, who was hurt, when suddenly she realized: it was her.

His hand rubbed her hand, slow soothing circles as she sobbed into him. “I’m so sorry Jess, I’m so sorry.” He whispered into her hair, the sound drowned out by her own crying and the ghostly high pitch wailing of a child.

It was the seventeenth anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance. And it never got better.

Never.

**Author's Note:**

> To be quite honest, I never expected to post again. But here we are, a new fandom that I have made friends in that make me feel comfortable enough to do this. So, here it is. Please don't expect consistent posts. But I do promise to try my hardest to finish this.


End file.
